Steel Products Prices North America
April 10, 2014
Why There Are Variations in Flat Rolled Price Indices
Written by John Packard
Steel Market Update is aware that many buyers and sellers of steel have been keyed in on the variations between various flat rolled steel indexes. In the past, Steel Market Update found the spread between our steel index and those of Platts and CRU to generally be negligible ($1-$10 per ton at any one time). As of this week, the spread between hot rolled price averages calculated by CRU and those of Platts are at $16 per ton and the spread between SMU and CRU is $1 per ton, and when SMU is compared to Platts the difference is $15 per ton. Recent spreads have gone out as wide as $35 per ton (CRU vs. Platts).
Below is a static view of one of our interactive graphs which can be found in our website (must be logged in to use interactive graph). The graph shows SMU (blue), CRU (red) and Platts (yellow) indices on hot rolled coil from the beginning of the year through today.
